One of the mysteries of how life on earth began is how the amino acids, the building blocks of
life were made. Miller and Urey showed if they mixed together the substances of the primordial
earth methane (CH4) ammonia (NH3) and water (H2O) under electricity (to mimic electrical
storms) they could produce eleven of the twenty amino acids present in proteins.!
What better way to understand the primordial earth than by way of the primordial caveman?!
Thus at first glance how does a caveman look at the structure of the primordial gas methane
(CH4)? Well CH4 is carbon (C) which is (has 4 valence electrons for bonding). And, is H4
which means there are 4 hydrogen atoms that connect to it. But hydrogen (H) is meaning
for CH4 to be neutral it needs . So we have the chemical structure of methane is:!
!
A carbon surrounded by by four hydrogens in single bonds. The
caveman asks how four things fit around one? Being smart he says
a square tiled by four regular octagons:!
!
Never mind that a carbon atom C is much larger than a hydrogen
atom H…!
So therefore it would be more accurately represented by a carbon atom at the center
surrounded four hydrogen atoms as squares, the carbon atom the regular octagon, the exact
inversion:!
Which actually closely represents the relative sizes of carbon and
hydrogen if they are circles inscribed in them.!
Let us compute the scenario of our caveman’s desire to see carbon tiled by hydrogen without
leaving gaps:"